Remain or Resign? Jewish Leaders’ Dilemmas in the Netherlands and Belgium under Nazi Occupation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Why did the chairman of the “Jewish Council” in Belgium decide to resign from his position in late 1942 while his counterparts in the Netherlands, operating in a seemingly similar context, decided to remain in place until the council was dissolved? The choices and motivations of Jewish leaders during Nazi rule have been a persistent subject of discussion in Holocaust historiography for decades. To this day, research has overwhelmingly been conducted in national contexts, which has obscured a thorough understanding of the distinctive circumstances in which Jewish leaders operated. By exploring the different socio-historical premises on which the Jewish organizations in the Netherlands and Belgium were built, this article argues that the level of (dis)continuation with prewar communal structures played a significant role in the posture and choices of Jewish functionaries under Nazi occupation in these two countries.